Wal-Mart allegedly involved in Mexican-bribery scandal, case under Department of Justice consideration – Part 1

Wal-Mart, the biggest corporate entity in the US in consumer business, is about to come under tight scrutiny of the US Department of Justice. The company has been accused of alleged bribery in the Mexican division, in a US-based newspaper article. The DOJ has been urged to take a notice of the situation under Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and Bribery Act of the US constitution.

According to the report in the newspaper, the company’s Mexican division is involved in an organized bribery with the Mexican law enforcement agencies. The issue however, is not new. This incident happened in 2005 and has been opened to the public’s view by a former Wal-Mart de Mexico executive, Sergio Cicero Zapata.

According to Zapata, Wal-Mart’s Mexican management of operations intentionally bribed the Mexican government official in 2005 and though an internal investigation was conducted, that reported a false alarm, the case was closed both at Wal-Mart and the Department of Justice.

The investigation was conducted by Jose Luis Rodriguezmacedo Rivera, the general counsel for Wal-Mart de Mexico, and the team quickly came to the conclusion of no bribery committed by any Wal-Mart officials in 2006.

The article argues that whether the company comes under the FCPA or not, allegation does put them under scrutiny under the Anti-bribery law in the US. The DOJ has been taking the bribery issues and other corruptions in the US or related to US entities very seriously. At first the statute had been given leniency but some reasons, for the last the half a decade, the DOJ has taken the matter very seriously.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Apr 23 2012. Filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.